The murder of George Floyd in May has shone a spotlight on the deeply entrenched racism in our society and brought into focus how Black people are often at the sharp end of this. The ensuing surge in the Black Lives Matter movement has sparked long overdue conversations and is fuelling a wave of activities aimed at bringing about urgent, meaningful and enduring change.
Brighton Doctoral College stands in solidarity with the Black community. We are committed to working with our students and colleagues to help overcome racial inequalities and injustices in Higher Education. We believe it is imperative that the voices of those with lived experience are heard so they can inform the work that must be undertaken to address both structural racism and the issues affecting Black people’s day-to-day lives. At the same time, we must ensure the burden of responsibility does not lie with Black people. We all have a duty to fix this.
We’ve created this space on our blog to bring together voices, actions and resources, and to provide a platform that is open to ideas and development. Hosting a Black Lives Matter space on a blog set up to provide information relating to Covid-19 might seem odd to some. But Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, a fact highlighting how injustices and inequalities don’t come neatly packaged in separate boxes. Plus, of our various digital spaces, right now this blog is getting the most traffic and that’s useful for gaining visibility.
Some of our Black students have already being doing a lot of work to help break down the barriers impeding the progress of Black students and to drive forward an anti-racism agenda. We particularly want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Naz Biggs and Esther Omotola Ayoola in the School of Applied Social Science for their labour both within and outside the University. We recognise that racism affects not only Black people and that racism affects different groups of people in different ways. We are learning that the term ‘BAME’ is often considered unhelpful. BAME homogenises experience and, by grouping together vastly differing experiences within a single category, BAME effectively means ‘non-white’ and is very othering. This blog space is to help tackle the specific issues affecting Black people – some of which, but not all, will also affect people of other racial and ethnic groups.
We know that many Black people have experienced profound distress and pain following the murder of George Floyd and there is a deep need for healing. If you are seeking support, the university has a range of services available, including specialist counselling for PGRs which you can access via your SSGT. You can also access free support through the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network.
We hope you’ll want to return to this area of the blog to contribute and to keep up to date with our plans and activities as they develop. If you want to contact us directly, please email DoctoralCollege@brighton.ac.uk.
This is just the beginning and we have a long way to go. We want to move forward with optimism, compassion and openness, and good amount of fire in our bellies to help bring about meaningful change and a fairer, more equitable world.
